Japanese gaming powerhouse GungHo Online Entertainment, the maker of the hit mobile game Puzzle & Dragons, announced this week that Princess Punt Sweets – its second most popular smartphone game – has has surpassed eight million downloads in Japan.
The only other region where this title is available is in Korea, having launched back in July of 2013 (iOS and Android). I’m surprised that GungHo has not expanded this game to English regions [1], because I think it really has the kind of cute appeal that has helped so many other Japanese apps succeed in overseas markets in the past year or two.
It might be an easier sell to overseas markets than Puzzle & Dragons, I think.
If you’d like to try out the Japanese version, you can get it as a free download for iOS and Android.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo Otaku Mode, the startup behind the Japanese subculture site of the same name, announced today that it has raised series A funding worth 270 million yen. The round was led by Itochu Technology Ventures, with Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Sun Eight Investment, GaiaX Global Marketing Ventures (GX), and 500 Startups also participating [1]. Otaku Mode did not disclose the breakdown of the funding. Since first launching in the form of a Facebook fan page back in 2011, the startup has acquired over 14.7 million likes. They registered a company in Delaware in December of 2012, and subsequently joined Silicon valley accelerator 500 Startups. In addition to their fan page, they subsequently created their own website OtakuMode.com. Their partnering creators have increased to five times the total from last year. Evolving into e-commerce The company started its e-commerce business last September, as one of their primary revenue streams in addition to ad sales. We understand that they intend to use these new fund to further improve their e-commerce platform. According to the company’s CEO Tomohide Kamei, the gender demographic of their user base is evenly split, with almost 40% of their users coming from the…
Tokyo Otaku Mode, the startup behind the Japanese subculture site of the same name, announced today that it has raised series A funding worth 270 million yen. The round was led by Itochu Technology Ventures, with Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Sun Eight Investment, GaiaX Global Marketing Ventures (GX), and 500 Startups also participating [1]. Otaku Mode did not disclose the breakdown of the funding.
Since first launching in the form of a Facebook fan page back in 2011, the startup has acquired over 14.7 million likes. They registered a company in Delaware in December of 2012, and subsequently joined Silicon valley accelerator 500 Startups.
In addition to their fan page, they subsequently created their own website OtakuMode.com. Their partnering creators have increased to five times the total from last year.
Evolving into e-commerce
The company started its e-commerce business last September, as one of their primary revenue streams in addition to ad sales. We understand that they intend to use these new fund to further improve their e-commerce platform.
According to the company’s CEO Tomohide Kamei, the gender demographic of their user base is evenly split, with almost 40% of their users coming from the Asian region, with 20% for each of North and South America. Most of of items sold on the platform are shipped to overseas users spread across 60 countries.
Their strategy for marketing their e-commerce business is very aggressive. For example, a limited edition print (shown below) was $1,200, but it sold out immediately. Dragonball art prints autographed by manga author Akira Toriyama is on sale for about $200.
The user retention rate for their e-commerce service is much higher than other e-commerce sites, says Kamei.
A toy shop for the world
I believe Tokyo Otaku Mode has much potential to be a global media presence, capitalizing on Japan’s unique culture and art. But it will likely be difficult for them to be a comprehensive solution like Amazon, which started out with books but expanded to other items. The startup’s strength is very dependent on their chosen niche.
Kamei explained that the market cap in the global entertainment merchandising industry is worth about $29.3 billion. Since the market is dominated by content companies from the US and and around Asia he hopes that his company can sell products using characters from other companies in the future (Disney, for example). He added,
We can’t win alone. We can build our business by partnering with content holders. If we expand our business to selling non-Japanese character items, our website could look like a toy shop selling interesting items from around the world.
Even limited edition prints worth $1,200 were sold out immediately
Itochu Technology Ventures, GaiaX Global Marketing Ventures, and 500startups invested in the past rounds. ↩
This week we witnessed yet another entrant into Japan’s mobile news app space. It’s called Mynd, and it comes from Tokyo-based TomyK, led by Tomihisa Kamada. The app has a very beautiful UI with a number of slick translucent elements (pictured below). It also supports a wide range of external services, including Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Pocket, and Hatena. Users can opt to read news at any time, or have a summary delivered to them every morning (like Gunosy does, for example). The single article view defaults to the source’s own web view rather than stripped down text view [1], which is a mistake in my view – but this appears to be common practice among news apps in Japan. It’s interesting to see more and more new apps emerging in this space to challenge the likes of Gunosy and SmartNews. I hope to bring you a closer look at this sector in the near future, so stay tuned for that. For now, if you’d like to give Mynd a try, it’s available as a free download for iOS and Android. Think Instapaper, Readability, or even SmartNews’s ‘Smartmode’. ↩
This week we witnessed yet another entrant into Japan’s mobile news app space. It’s called Mynd, and it comes from Tokyo-based TomyK, led by Tomihisa Kamada.
The app has a very beautiful UI with a number of slick translucent elements (pictured below). It also supports a wide range of external services, including Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Pocket, and Hatena. Users can opt to read news at any time, or have a summary delivered to them every morning (like Gunosy does, for example). The single article view defaults to the source’s own web view rather than stripped down text view [1], which is a mistake in my view – but this appears to be common practice among news apps in Japan.
It’s interesting to see more and more new apps emerging in this space to challenge the likes of Gunosy and SmartNews. I hope to bring you a closer look at this sector in the near future, so stay tuned for that.
For now, if you’d like to give Mynd a try, it’s available as a free download for iOS and Android.
Think Instapaper, Readability, or even SmartNews’s ‘Smartmode’. ↩
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Open Network Lab, the startup incubator operated by Digital Garage and its affiliated companies, announced today it has started accepting applications for the ninth batch of its seed accelerator program. This batch will run from July to September of this year, with qualifying startups able to work from the incubator’s Daikanyama space (in Tokyo). Participants can also work at the recently established DG717 venue in San Francisco, where they can develop products, explore funding opportunities, and receive mentoring in the heart of the US startup community. Since its launch back in 2010, the program has incubated 45 startups over the past eight batches. Many of their graduates have been aggressively seeking business opportunities in Silicon Valley and Japan. You may recalled movie crowdsourcing platform Viibar raised $3 million from Globis Capital Partners and Gree Ventures back in February. On a related note, the incubator will hold a demo day on April 23rd to showcase startups from their eighth batch, so please stay for our coverage of that event. You can also check out our previous articles covering past demo days. Your submissions for the ninth batch will be accepted until May 19th.
A workshop held at DG717, Digital Garage’s incubation space in San Francisco.
Tokyo-based Open Network Lab, the startup incubator operated by Digital Garage and its affiliated companies, announced today it has started accepting applications for the ninth batch of its seed accelerator program.
This batch will run from July to September of this year, with qualifying startups able to work from the incubator’s Daikanyama space (in Tokyo). Participants can also work at the recently established DG717 venue in San Francisco, where they can develop products, explore funding opportunities, and receive mentoring in the heart of the US startup community.
Since its launch back in 2010, the program has incubated 45 startups over the past eight batches. Many of their graduates have been aggressively seeking business opportunities in Silicon Valley and Japan. You may recalled movie crowdsourcing platform Viibar raised $3 million from Globis Capital Partners and Gree Ventures back in February.
On a related note, the incubator will hold a demo day on April 23rd to showcase startups from their eighth batch, so please stay for our coverage of that event. You can also check out our previous articles covering past demo days.
Your submissions for the ninth batch will be accepted until May 19th.
See the original article written in Japanese Bento.jp, a new lunch delivery service for busy business people, launched last week. Now with just a few taps on your smartphone, you can get your freshly made bento box lunch [1] delivered in around 20 minutes, at a costs of 800 yen ($8) including the delivery fee. I interviewed the company’s CEO Atsumasa Kobayashi, who previously worked in Itokuro (a company later transferred to KLab), involved in launching its social games division and Shanghai branch office. He came back to Japan in 2013 and founded Bento.jp Inc this past January. Currently, he runs the company, along with engineer Masahiro Saito. He explains coming up with the idea for the service through his own experience. It was a time when I was so busy that I didn’t have many other choices than to go to convenience stores to get lunch to bring back to the office. I wished I had more options. I’d like to provide more alternatives for those who feel the same way, bringing some innovation to the existing lunch market which hasn’t changed in a long time. How is Bento.jp different from other food delivery services? The big difference is…
Bento.jp, a new lunch delivery service for busy business people, launched last week. Now with just a few taps on your smartphone, you can get your freshly made bento box lunch [1] delivered in around 20 minutes, at a costs of 800 yen ($8) including the delivery fee.
I interviewed the company’s CEO Atsumasa Kobayashi, who previously worked in Itokuro (a company later transferred to KLab), involved in launching its social games division and Shanghai branch office. He came back to Japan in 2013 and founded Bento.jp Inc this past January. Currently, he runs the company, along with engineer Masahiro Saito. He explains coming up with the idea for the service through his own experience.
It was a time when I was so busy that I didn’t have many other choices than to go to convenience stores to get lunch to bring back to the office. I wished I had more options. I’d like to provide more alternatives for those who feel the same way, bringing some innovation to the existing lunch market which hasn’t changed in a long time.
How is Bento.jp different from other food delivery services? The big difference is its convenience, a sort of Uber – but for lunches. Bento.jp reminds me of UberRUSH, a new service recently launched by Uber, which delivers packages on foot or by bike in New York city. Kobayashi adds:
Like Amazon, more and more companies are starting to deliver orders on the same day or the following day. What’s the next step? I’m sure more companies will try to deliver within hours, and then in less than an hour. Bento.jp wants to meet that expectation and bring customers what they want soon after they want it.
The bento that the company currently offers is the kind most people are familiar with, with things like rice and fried chicken. Their bento lineup is created by a chef with experience at the Michelin-starred French restaurant Chez Naka. The company plans to add more quality Bento to this lineup in the future.
Bento.jp first looks to achieve stable sales of about 1000 bento a day. And while the delivery area is currently limited to Shibuya, Dogenzaka and Roppongi, it aims to expand to other busy area later on.
The number of startups offering food-related services are growing around the world. If a company like Bento.jp can successfully respond to the customers’ needs, I believe there is a lot of potential to win repeat customers.
If you work in the area where service is available, do give Bento.jp a try. You can download the app for free from the App Store.
A bento lunch is a Japanese take-out box packed with rice and variety of side dishes, usually for one person. ↩
Ample, the Tokyo-based startup behind cosplay photo sharing platform of the same name, announced today that it has raised an undisclosed sum of funding from Japan’s online learning company Hitomedia and entrepreneur/investor Takafumi Horie. Since its launch back in October of 2012, the platform has acquired more than 40,000 photos and over 210,000 likes on Facebook, and has users from about 60 countries worldwide. The company plans to use these funds to strengthen its team so it can better serve its users, and develop additional features such as a personalized interface. For Hitomedia, this is the fourth tech startups investment in its history, following US-based social commerce platform Fancy, online English learning school Langrich, and mobile food recommendation app Teriyaki. via Venture Now
Ample, the Tokyo-based startup behind cosplay photo sharing platform of the same name, announced today that it has raised an undisclosed sum of funding from Japan’s online learning company Hitomedia and entrepreneur/investor Takafumi Horie.
Since its launch back in October of 2012, the platform has acquired more than 40,000 photos and over 210,000 likes on Facebook, and has users from about 60 countries worldwide. The company plans to use these funds to strengthen its team so it can better serve its users, and develop additional features such as a personalized interface.
For Hitomedia, this is the fourth tech startups investment in its history, following US-based social commerce platform Fancy, online English learning school Langrich, and mobile food recommendation app Teriyaki.
Rick Martin
Takeshi Hirano
Masaru Ikeda
Yukari Mitsuhashi
